Santa arrived today – The Logic of children toys

Posted on 15th December 2016

He did, today Santa entered into the world of the Happyland people. Which got me thinking, who decides which toys sit behind which advent calendar window? The logic in me would put Santa on door 24, Christmas Eve and yet here he is December the 15th. Seems a bit early to me but is it planned? Now he has to put his feet up like everyone else and wait. I wonder how much thought actually goes into these things, is it just me who wonders?

One day for example one window would reveal a single chair, but you know what? We have two chairs, but no table. Who decided to split the chairs and the table up so much? But still here is Santa? Never the less, perhaps it doesn’t matter? Maybe they won’t notice, but If I was a child I think I would. Why has Santa appeared on day 15? Where is is sleigh? How has he got here? Did he fly on the back of the single reindeer that ventured out of the calendar in the first week? It’s still an amazing advent calendar, perhaps logic serves no purpose here.

It’s been a quiet morning here, we stayed indoors yesterday as Ariella was still quite tired after her sickness bug over the weekend/start of the week. This morning after opening up our advent calendars and getting ready we needed to venture out to post a letter, pickup some groceries and generally show our faces to the wind. We have a play date to attend later, I really can’t believe it’s already nearly the end of the week and tomorrow is Friday!

Lunch time we tried out a new recipe taken from Annabel Karmel’s website, we don’t often buy any of AK food (if we are getting a meal I prefer the Cooks children’s menu or little dish) but I was browsing for recipes on Sunday evening and thought we could give this a go. It’s called Mummy’s Pot Noodle, I thought it was yummy but Ariella wasn’t really in the mood for noddles. She did have home made Spaghetti Bol last night so maybe she wasn’t up for another noodlely textured meal. Instead she devoured a pot of yoghurt, we made some progress with her using a spoon. To be honest she has always been able to eat with a spoon if it was loaded but prefers to use her hands. Today I showed her how to load the spoon herself and she definitely tried a few times before chucking the spoon away and using her hands.

We have some wonderful Gruffalo cutlery eagerly sat in the drawer which was a brilliant gift from one of our friends. Every time we put it out, which is pretty much ever meal it immediately is thrown to the floor. We shall keep persevering! I’m always on the look out for healthy toddler lunch ideas so if you have any recommendations I’d love to know!

After lunch the post lady always brings our post at the same time every day, give or take ten minutes. For someone who likes routine it’s a reassuring sound hearing the bundle of mail hit the floor then off I go to collect it. Some days instead of a dropping sound there is a nice big knock at the door, we have a big lion knocker which resonates around the hallway. Those days I know there is a parcel waiting for me, today it brought me a book I ordered from Amazon called “A parents guide to developmental delays – by Laurie LeComer”, I ordered it alongside another book called “Small Steps Forward: Using games and activities to help preschool children with special needs – by Sarah Newman” which is more based around activities for SEN early years. We are still waiting due to high demand to be assigned with portage and an early years key worker so I wanted to find some structured reading. I feel like the activity list I designed needs some work as Ariella has moved forward in the last few months, so the activities need to be more fluid.

A quick dinner, Salmon home made pesto with mozzarella and couscous – Recipe from The baby-led weaning cookbook

Now that I’ve done all most of my Christmas shopping I have made some mental space to start planning for our next holiday. We are heading to the Indian Ocean and I can’t wait to write a long post about my choices on what I’ll be taking with us, how to cope with a long haul flight and in general my thoughts after on choosing the Indian Ocean as a family holiday destination. I’ll also be looking to plan Ariella’s second birthday party prior to this too as most of the work will need to be organised before we go. Exciting times! Well I’ve got some reading to do, by my next post I’ll be all up on the terminology and a child development expert – where’s my wine.